Dumped, downsized, delayed ... The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Photograph: 20th

From Harry Potter to Narnia: thepressure on film franchises to performIn the world of film franchises, it's billions or bust – anything lessthan Harry Potter-style success spells the end for a series. CathClarke reports on how Narnia went to the brink

Cath ClarkeThe Guardian, Thursday 9 December 2010 22.59 GMT

Century Fox

The omens suggest there may be a happy ending in sight in the saga of the Narniafranchise. Last week snow was falling – as if Aslan himself had ordered it – as TheVoyage of the Dawn Treader, the third in the Chronicles of Narnia series, waspremiered as the royal film performance. (Rumour has it the Queen shed a tear or two;maybe it was from relief – last year she had to sit through The Lovely Bones.) But in2008 it was different story: it looked like curtains for Narnia after Disneyunceremoniously dumped the series – disappointed with the performance of film No 2,Prince Caspian. Production of Dawn Treader was downsized, then delayed; for a whileit looked likely that it wouldn't get made at all, and the projected seven-film serieswould be cut off at the ankles.

It wasn't the first high-profile franchise to be rejected by its parent studio. A yearearlier, the planned trilogy of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials was canned after thefirst film, The Golden Compass, failed to live up to expectations at the US box-office.To the casual observer, neither Caspian nor Compass looks much like a failure: bothtook hundreds of millions of dollars. But there is no margin for error in the newgeneration of multi-film, factory-line franchises – with their whopping CGI bills andbudgets that would keep a despot in military trifles. Get it right, like Harry Potter($6bn and counting) or Twilight ($1.7bn), and it's golden. But films have to match thosetakings to have got it right. Anything less is a failure.

Franchises have been around longer than Bond has been bothering blondes, or Draculahas been sucking blood. What has changed is that now Hollywood studios aredesperately seeking properties to nail their sails to, committing upfront – in theory atleast – to making a string of films. Mike Goodridge, editor of the film industry paperScreen International, compares new-formula franchises such as Harry Potter andTwilight to Saturday morning serials, with storylines that run like a thread through the

movies: "It's a dream situation for a studio to have a captive audience, which willinevitably come back for the next helping." As Harry Potter and Twilght grind to aclose, eyes are on the next prize: which might just be Suzanne Collins's post-apocalyptic teen trilogy The Hunger Games; Kaya Scodelario and Chloe Moretz are inthe running for the lead.

"If you can pull them off, they are a license to print money," says director MichaelApted. He has been on the other side, too – he was already hard at work on The DawnTreader when Disney pulled the plug. Did he think it was all over? "For a bit."

What's Apted's verdict on Prince Caspian – the film that prompted Disney to bail? "Idon't think it did go wrong. I don't think it was messed up. I just think they just took itfor granted they were on to a successful franchise like Lord of the Rings." In reality,adapting CS Lewis is a trickier proposition than Tolkien or JK Rowling. Each of theseven Narnia titles is its own universe, with a changing cast of characters. "PrinceCaspian is much darker than the first book," says Apted. There was less of the wonderand magic of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; it was bigger and scarier, withtwo monster battles. With The Dawn Treader, Apted says he has gone back to Narniabasics with a fairytale adventure on the high seas, featuring a stonking comic turn by17-year-old Will Poulter as cousin Eustace.

In 2008, after Disney backed out, a replacement studio, Fox, was found within amonth. Still, Apted must have felt like he was captaining a sinking ship. "It wasdaunting. We were put in the position that we had to retrieve the franchise, both interms of tone – to make it more family-friendly – and to do it for less money." Ifappearances are anything to go by, he is exactly the man you'd want in a crisis. A 69-year-old veteran (his credits include Enigma and The World is Not Enough), he is dryas bone and seemingly unflappable. His budget was shrunk to $140m. Which is still ascary amount of money ("well, you don't think about that").

How poorly, exactly, did Prince Caspian perform? It went to No 1 in the US, and wasDisney's second most successful film of 2008. "When you do the math, it doesn't lookquite so pretty," says Apted. "The second film cost more and made less." He's right:Prince Caspian took $420m worldwide. It cost $225m to make, and the same again tomarket. By comparison The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe took $745m, havingbeen made for $180m.

There was another layer of intrigue to the saga: bad blood between Disney and WaldenMedia, the company that holds the rights to the Narnia books and which co-financedand co-produced the movies, and which is owned by Phil Anschutz, a billionaireconservative Christian. Apted describes a situation in which everybody was blamingeverybody else: "There was a lot of ill feeling. I think that poisoned the water a bit."

If $420m in box office receipts isn't enough to secure the future of a franchise, howmuch is? These days $1bn is the new benchmark for a bona-fide smash (though onlyseven films so far have made that much). What that means for audiences is that if youhave a pulse you are in the target demographic. Here's Screen International's MikeGoodridge again: "I hate to say it, but with these films you have to hit what the studioscall the 'four quadrant market': men, women, young and old. You have to hit everybodyand then you have a genuine phenomenon."

Prince Caspian, it was thought, pandered too much to teenage boys. Fox and Waldentook no chances with The Dawn Treader. Earlier this year Christian leaders andassorted CS Lewis experts were invited to a "Narnia Summit" in LA. "We went throughevery line of dialogue and every scene with them to make sure it was a really faithfuladaptation," Walden Media's president Michael Flaherty told Christianity Today at thetime.

One obvious solution, surely, would be to make the movies more cheaply. No, saysMichael Apted. While he was happy to trim the budget of The Dawn Treader ("I wanted

to make sure the technology didn't overwhelm the emotion of the film"), he saysswingeing cuts to fantasy films are out of the question. "If you penny pinch, you'redead. Audiences are so savvy, and if you do it on the cheap you're out of it."

One person who disagrees wholeheartedly with that is Philip Pullman, whose His DarkMaterials books looked set to become another major franchise. When New LineCinema – which was behind The Lord of the Rings – filmed the first instalment, it wasthe most expensive movie it had ever made. Released under the book's US title, TheGolden Compass, it did roaring business overseas, but just $70m in the US – andbecause New Line had sold overseas rights to the film in order to fund the production,it didn't make its money back on the international box office. It was a crucial failure forNew Line, which was absorbed into its parent company, Warner Bros, shortlyafterwards.

Pullman reckons we are now seeing diminishing returns from CGI. "We don't believe itany more. Or we know that it's only computers." If there were ever to be a GoldenCompass remake, he has an entirely different film in mind. "I would rather it was madein someone's shed with tin cans and bits of rope. I think it would be more involving –to be made for about 10 quid, rather than $200m."

Talk to Pullman and you get an impression of the head of steam that builds behind amega-budget franchise. He was delighted with the young actress Dakota Blue Richards,who was cast as his 12-year-old heroine Lyra ("she was absolutely terrific"). The film-makers looked at 10,000 girls before finding her. But she would be too old for the partif the His Dark Materials franchise was resurrected. "They would have to recast. It'slost really. It's gone." (Makers of franchises featuring kid actors have to move quickly –the little blighters have a habit of getting bigger.)

The curious case of The Golden Compass's poor US performance has been widely put

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down to the controversy surrounding its anti-religious themes. Though fudgedsomewhat in the film itself, the outcry from the Catholic League ("atheism for kids")and the rest may have been fatal. "The Golden Compass didn't hit America's heartland,and that's what killed it, really," says Goodridge. Pullman says: "It was always going tobe a difficult film for that reason. The only way to do it is to take the issue bravely tothe front and wave it like a banner."

When studios first looked at his trilogy, did they assume they had the next Lord of theRings on their hands? "Oh they always think X is the next Y," Pullman says. "They haveno idea at all about looking forward. Publishers are just the same. They can only seewhat's coming in terms of what's been. Nobody was looking for the first Harry Potter,only JK Rowling. Studio and publishers: I don't rate them very highly as originators orvisionaries."

And it's not just writers like Pullman who believe there is a failure of imagination atwork. Here's Goodridge: "The problem with Hollywood at the moment is that theyneed an identifiable brand before they go into an expensive movie production. Which isa problem for creativity." So while there are trend-bucking examples in the system –the auteur-cleverness of Christopher Nolan's brooding Batman movies, for one –overall we're looking at reboot ad nauseum: Superman again, a Spider-Man rework.Says Goodridge: "It's no secret. Hollywood is scrabbling to put on the screenproperties people already know. They can't take a risk on original ideas any more."

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